Liquor licence application: Telangana HC refuses to grant stay on govt’s extension of deadline, reserves matter for orders

After the conclusion of the arguments, the Bench stated: “Since the matter is reserved, any steps taken by the respondent authorities will be subject to the result of the writ petition.”

The court also sought a short written synopsis from the state’s counsel by Monday.

The writ petition by D Venkateshwara Rao and others has sought to declare the memo, which extended the last date for receipt of applications for retail liquor shop licences, as illegal and in violation of the Telangana Excise (Grant of license of selling by Shop and Conditions of License) Rules 2012.

A direction was also sought by the petitioner not to consider the applications received beyond the prescribed time on the last date.

Continuing the arguments on Friday, the state’s counsel, Additional Advocate General Imran Khan, argued that the excise officer has the power to postpone the selection as per the law and the term “selection”, includes calling of applications, scrutiny, drawal of lots, rejection, etc.

He noted that selection does not mean only “drawal of lots”. This was in response to the petitioners’ counsel’s view that selection means only the drawing of lots. He recalled that the decision to extend the last date of receiving applications from October 18 to October 23 was a policy decision on account of a bandh call given by the Other Backward Classes (OBC) associations on October 18.

He also informed the court that 89,343 applications were filed till the end of October 18, and only another 5,793 applications were received till the evening of October 23, which is 0.5 per cent of excess applications.

Arguing for the petitioners, senior counsel Avinash Desai on Friday contended that the chance of an applicant being selected has gone down drastically simply by extension of the period for submitting and accepting more applications. The payment of a non-refundable application fee of Rs 3 lakh is a calculated risk taken by the applicants, the counsel stated, adding that rules cannot be changed in the middle of the game.